Massive corals record deforestation in Malaysian Borneo through sediments in river discharge

Naciri, Walid; Boom, Arnoud; Payne, Matthew; Browne, Nicola; Evans, Noreen J.; Holdship, Philip; Rankenburg, Kai; Nagarajan, Ramasamy; McDonald, Bradley J.; McIlwain, Jennifer; Zinke, Jens

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-20-1587-2023

Articles | Volume 20, issue 8

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-20-1587-2023

© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-20-1587-2023

© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 20, issue 8

Research article

|

21 Apr 2023

Research article |

| 21 Apr 2023

Massive corals record deforestation in Malaysian Borneo through sediments in river discharge

Walid Naciri, Arnoud Boom, Matthew Payne, Nicola Browne, Noreen J. Evans, Philip Holdship, Kai Rankenburg, Ramasamy Nagarajan, Bradley J. McDonald, Jennifer McIlwain, and Jens Zinke

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-20-1587-2023-supplement

Data sets

Malaysian Borneo Sr/Ca, Ba/Ca and d18O Coral Data from 1985 to 2017 CE J. Zinke and W. Naciri https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/paleo-search/study/37855

High-Resolution Global Maps of 21st-Century Forest Cover Change M. C. Hansen, P. V. Potapov, R. Moore, M. Hancher, S. A. Turubanova, A. Tyukavina, D. Thau, S. V. Stehman, S. J. Goetz, T. R. Loveland, A. Kommareddy, A. Egorov, L. Chini, C. O. Justice, and J. R. G. Townshend https://glad.earthengine.app/view/global-forest-change

Model code and software

Coral age model code W. Naciri https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7782385

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Short summary

In this study, we tested the ability of massive boulder-like corals to act as archives of land use in Malaysian Borneo to palliate the lack of accurate instrumental data on deforestation before the 1980s. We used mass spectrometry to measure trace element ratios in coral cores to use as a proxy for sediment in river discharge. Results showed an extremely similar increase between our proxy and the river discharge instrumental record, demonstrating the use of these corals as reliable archives.